Raw Feeding Chronicles.... - Page 4

I'm not entirely sure how much mine are pooping, as they have community litter boxes. Since I have two on and two off...and I generally scoop every other day to three days when I'm really a slacker (although, ideally, I'd like to scoop this daily.. I just haven't had the energy to get to that part by the time I finish everything else up)...

It's hard to tell which is which, or how often. However, I do notice that the litter boxes don't smell as bad in general. That is not to say, however, that my crew's poop smells like roses because one whiff of a fresh batch can knock you unconcious.

I'm an obsessive compulsive scooper ...so I can say that my only totally raw-fed cat Beandip poops once a day, everyday.

He eats 4.5 ounces a day on a good day...seems to have leveled out at 4 now. He was stuck at roughly 3 for awhile. When we started on the raw he was still feeling kind of crummy from his bladder issues. So he didn't eat so well for awhile. However, he only lost a quarter of a lb when he was eating less than 3oz/day. He's feeling better now, so his activity level is much higher than it used to be. He used to be about as active as a lampshade. Raw has been great for him. That's a big eater you have, Heather.

The kittens eat about 2-3oz/day in addition to all the canned food they can eat...which is quite a bit. I would give them more raw, but I need for somebody to finish the canned food...cause I have some that demand it.

I forgot to mention...but this is totally unrelated to my previous post.

It's official - these guys absolutely don't like those rabbit medallions. I figured since lamb seemed to be an acquired taste (they're finally eating it!) ..that maybe they'd eat rabbit now too. NOPE. I put out one ounce, 3 of them took one bite, one only licked it, and the other 4 didn't even try it.

I can hardly wait for luxor to be on totally raw - his poop DEFINITELY doesn't smell as badly any more....

should i just switch him off the wet now? he's half and half now....

well tomorrow morning (if i have a snowday) will be the day i try it, if not - it will be this weekend so i can be around to check on him.

Yeah, Kahn eats right at 12-13 ounces a day... sometimes more. But, he's an F3 Bengal, and he's only now just filling out. He is starting to build up some muscle too, but.. you know, sometimes he does eat almost a pound a day. Joyeux is Bengal (hear her roar) too.. and she eats.. eh.. 3-4 on a low day and up to about 7 on a good day.. and then nibbles kibble too. They're hearty eaters. Kahn is a little over two years, and Joyeux is just at six months.

heh heh, the wrath of khan

Yeah, how little did we know how appropriate his name.. Shere Kahn.. was going to be.. and he's really got that whole "wrath" thing going on, so it's completely accurate. Poor Bagheera gets beat up..my little mousy Mau. Kahn tries to beat Joyeux and Noel up... Noel just reminds exactly who is queen, and Joyeux is like you don't impress me, I'm Bengal too ::ear flick::.

So, gave the non-raw four-footers a dish of sheeba mixed with chunked raw turkey this morning. I have a feeling Bagheera is going to be the easier of the two to convert, but they seemed to both eat some of it. Baggie often sniffs it when I give it to Joyeux, but never takes a bite. I don't think she really gets that it's food. She kind of looks at Joyeux like... why are you eating that, it doesn't smell like food...and watches her in confusion. Anyway, I will hopefully get them on board with at least having a bit of raw mixed with wet this weekend. I really need to start picking up the dry (the dry dish was emptied sometime in the night so they were hungry this morning when I fed them the mix). Noel really needs a diet anyway, and Baggie could afford to lose a few ounces, even though she's not fat.

BIG WHOOPS regarding Puddin's raw diet - Sorry, meant to type 1-2 days, which I really meant every other day. Eeep. Chalk it up to too much pollen affecting the brain and eyeballs and fingers.... Thank you for catching that! Boy - I can't imagine only having poop every 3 days - I be a worried Kitty Mommy!

Never thought I'd be thrilled over poop - Puddin's is perfect!

FYI - raw feeders - my regular grocery store (not the farmer's market) has lamb on sale right now for easter, so it might be a good time to stock up on lamb if y'all use it! Forgot our prices, but got a bunch of lamb shank portions (even w/the bone they were a great value and easy to cut up the meat). Figured out the cost of the lamb vs NV (which Tumper eats), and came out way cheaper!

Yeah, it's not too bad if you look for the sales on actual raw meat... buy on the sale weeks.

On a different note... Bagheera decided today, while I was dicing up raw, that she likes raw salmon. I had cut it up first and had a small mutiny on my hands since I hadn't fed any of them yet... so I put a few pieces of salmon down for them to munch on.. Joyeux had a bite. Kahn stuck his nose in the air, and Bagheera.. my normally dry kitty... came over and took a few licks.. a few more licks.. and then .. to my disbelief, she started eating it and ate a number of salmon chunks. And I'd say the most odd thing about it is, she kept it all down. She's the one that if you change her diet, no matter how miniscule the change, she pukes. And pukes. And pukes. She makes up for Noel's cast iron stomach.

Yeah, the lamb bombed here at first...but apparently it's an "acquired" taste, because now Junior, Beandip, and Pixel will eat it. Junior seems to really like it. Paisley INHALED one lamb medallion, the day she had her constipation crisis...and so of course it came up and now she won't touch the lamb.

I picked up a bag of the venison the other day...and so far...no dice. It took 8 of them to eat half and ounce the first time I tried. It's sort of snotty, reminds me of the lamb but just less bloody. Still snotty, though. MMMMM Yummy. LOL

LOL, those are Paisley's exact feelings on the lamb, now.

Mine LOVE the NB venison/pea food...so I wouldn't dare taint it with the spewy raw venison...they would go mental on me. I'm sure they have the taste/texture of the NB food memorized. I'm thinking, though since they do seem to like Venison, that I should find a different canned venison food to mix the raw venison with, maybe? Two that come to mind are the 100% meat (dog) by Evanger's and Wellness. Do you (or anyone else) know if those foods are chunky or ground? I think they would appreciate ground much better. Of course I guess Evanger's is a better choice these days...but I'm curious about both.

LOL, well, I think I posted earlier that Bagheera decided she quite liked salmon, but I decided yesterday to make up a mixture of a bunch of stuff. I only put a little salmon in it, but, I have to tell you, a little salmon goes a really long way on the smelly food road. So, now I have to go cut up more regular chicken to balance out the .. 1/3 pound salmon in the eight pounds of chunks..

But, I wanted to add that Noel decided she was going to have some of the turkey that I tossed down today for the first time, on her own. I'm on a mission to get them over to eating from the carcass... so I try to drop down bones every so often.

Kahn finally figured out to put his paw on it while he pulls.. so, we were having small successes with the duck bones and what was left on them that I wasn't messing with slicing off.

By the way.. I haven't tried venison, bison, emu, ostrich, or any of the more exotic flavors of meat yet, but they quite like all poultry. Turkey, chicken, and duck all get huge thumbs up from the Bengals. Mmmhmmm good stuff. They also quite liked the lamb I chunked up for them. Yeah, not so big on the beef. I can sneak some of it in. They don't mind beef liver so much (as long as we're not talking large quantities), but they really aren't fond of plain beef.


Overall, though, I think we're not going to have such a hard time switching everyone over.

Cool..well it can't hurt to try one can, to see if I can get them to taste the raw venison that way. I could mix it with some of their other regular cat food, but I usually don't have much luck "messing" with something they're already familar with. They KNOW. LOL

Don't feel bad Natalie...I offered mine some various chicken parts from the store one time and they sort of had a mental breakdown on me. It was nuts.

Let us know how the chicken goes!

They absolutely refuse to eat the medallions. It's more work to give them raw that you actually have to chop up, but... yeah.. they would rather work at the carcasses or go hungry than eat medallions. (about $60 later, and four full bags of food they won't touch...) ::mutters something about picky cats::

I decided to try to switch mine to the Nature's Variety medallions last weekend. I was feeling pretty discouraged until I read this thread. I'm feeling much better now...they might not be eating it, but at least none of mine peed on it!

My boys have been on a predominantly canned/pouch diet for years now. They get a little bit of dry as a treat at bedtime. They all prefer the chunks and gravy style food, and Forest is the only one who'll even touch a pate-style food (but he'll eat ANYTHING...then throw it up). They all LOVE raw meat, though, and will beg for it when I'm cooking dinner. They'll also steal scraps and wrappers out of the trash if they have half a chance, so I was hopeful that they'd take to the NV raw. I picked up a bag of the chicken/turkey medallions on Friday evening and tried splitting a medallion between the three of them at dinnertime.

As I expected, Forest ate it immediately. I have to be careful with him, though, because any sudden diet changes make him throw up. So I've been gradually increasing the amount of medallion he's getting and decreasing the canned. He hasn't thrown up yet, and seems pretty happy about it. He always eats the medallions before the canned, so I think he prefers them. We found a few crystals in Forest's urine about a year ago, so, at the vet's recommendation we've had him on the ProPlan urinary formula. After hearing about Beandip's successful urinalysis, I'm convinced that raw will be a better option for him. (He also has seriously stinky poops, so I'm really looking forward to that changing, too. )

Harvey was a little tougher. He at least tried the medallion, but only ate a little of it. I've tried mixing the medallion in with his canned food, but then he wouldn't eat any of it.

Tailer wouldn't even try the medallion. He just sniffed at it and looked at me like "you've GOT to be kidding me" . When I tried mixing it with his canned, he wouldn't eat the mixture either.

I'm going to keep trying here, though...especially after reading about other people's successes. Harvey and Tailer LOVE tuna, and I can get them to eat most anything by mixing it with tuna, so I think I'll pick up some and try that. I think I'll also pick up a bag of the beef medallions...maybe they'll like those better than the chicken.

Any other suggestions or advice would be very welcomed!

Or, I'll just send Kahn over so he can do his "evil demon possessed kitty spawn" routine and make them all think it must really be awesome to evoke that kind of response... he's the only one I've ever heard growl like that. Add a few head spins and some pea soup and .. he could audition for the exorcist.

Tucker and Diesel seem to be enjoying their raw more each day. They're trying beef this week. Tucker ate all of his food the first day and promptly threw up so I cut them back to 1 medallion split between the two cats twice a day. He is keeping it down so I'm going to increase to 1 medallion each tomarrow and see how he does. At this rate they'll be fully swiched in about a year Oh well, at least their open to trying it.

Well...

Last night I increased Forest's raw to a whole medallion mixed with a half can of food. He ate it with no problem. I think I'm going to keep him at this ratio for a couple days just to be cautious and make sure he doesn't have a reaction to it.

I picked up a bag of the beef medallions last night, since some here reported better luck with it than with the chicken/turkey. I blended the heck out of a medallion in the blender and mixed it into Harvey and Tailer's canned food with some tuna water and a few flakes of tuna on top. They were both going nuts meowing from the smell of the tuna.

Harvey proceeded to start eating right away, ate about half of it, then promptly threw it up all over the room and wouldn't eat anything else for the rest of the night.

Tailer wouldn't touch it. He sniffed at the tuna a few times (but wouldn't even touch the flakes on top) then sat in front of it and HOWLED piteously. I tried to wait him out, but he wouldn't have anything to do with it. The good news is that I then tried the Ultramix food that Sharky recommended in another thread (wheat-gluten-free chunks and gravy) and he ate that right away.

I'm going to try Harvey on the Ultramix tonight and try to get the two of them at least onto a wheat-gluten-free canned food before I try the raw again with them.

Hey Beandip what is the verdict on Leopold. Is he eating the raw.

No... but I haven't pushed it on him, either. I took a very low key approach with the others, and it worked. I somehow don't think that approach will work on him, but I can hope. He is on all canned and he lost a pound, so that's good...he's acting like a 9 year old kitten. It's crazy.